


And You’re So Lovely Dears

by Tricksterburd



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:17:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tricksterburd/pseuds/Tricksterburd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She got up from her seat, not able to sit in the cockpit with Spine and Hatch for even one second more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And You’re So Lovely Dears

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own SPG. Inspired by the end of Vice Quadrant. One shot. Not proofread, so if you see mistakes, they'll be fixed soon enough. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything. It’s been over a year since I’ve written anything story-like, and almost two since it’s been SPG. Lost muse for a long time there. But, who knows? Maybe this will be the end of the writer’s block? One can hope. I hope you enjoy this one, I’m sure no one remembers me anymore. But, well, I hope you enjoy it. I don’t know if it’s up to par with what I used to write, but I”m rusty. Give me a little leeway. If I can keep going, it’ll get better.

Rabbit had thought that this trip was going to help. When WINK appeared, it seemed like a godsend, a trip with just the three of them, alone, so they could talk and write and play and be like it used to. Now, after fighting the Giant, and restoring peace to the quadrant, Rabbit felt cheated. They had traveled mostly in silence, and after saving the planet, were now still sitting in silence on their way home. The big ship felt so cramped right now.

She got up from her seat, not able to sit in the cockpit with Spine and Hatch for even one second more. They were a mess. This last year or two had been a disaster, and it didn't look like it was about to get any better. So many transitions had happened in quick succession, and it hadn't been easy to adjust to all the changes on anyone's end. Jon, gone on his own adventures. HatchWorth, still learning about all the changes that went on in the world without him. Rabbit, learning that Pappy...

Pappy. Peter Walter the First. Rabbit squeezed her eyes shut as she reached the common, the dome of glass above her displaying a thrilling sky of stars. Peter had designed her, not him. He had drawn up a beautiful mechanical daughter. And then tested a build, and set it aside, unfinished, to make everyone else. And even after decades, never bothered to go back, and finish Rabbit. He had called Rabbit his boy, his son, his mechanical man. And all this time, he had a beautiful woman planned out for his creation.

It was Peter the Sixth that had found the plans, informed Rabbit. That had asked if Rabbit was interested in the changes to be what Pappy had intended. Rabbit had run off, world falling apart around her. Him. Her. Even now she wasn't totally sure what to think of herself at that moment in time.

Rabbit had been thought of, and thought of themselves, as a boy robot. And to find out that Walter had wanted Rabbit to be a daughter, molded after the woman he had loved. And didn't go through with it. Rabbit always thought that Pappy loved them, his metal children. But to go over a hundred years, unfinished. When the plans were found, was Rabbit a he, or a she? What would The First have called Rabbit?

Would The First have called Rabbit anything? Did the creator ever consider them people enough to give them titles of gender? Rabbit had been thinking long and hard over this problem when Spine found his sibling in the graveyard, feeding the ducks and sitting slouched at the grave-marker. 

Later that night, Rabbit asked Peter the Sixth to finish her. And the change became part of her life. It still hurt. It hurt almost the same as when her core had been ripped out of her by the Beciles. The man she had thought of as her father, who she had loved even after he had died. The man she idolized and held dear to her. Had not cared enough to finish his prototype, and took the easy way out. It had taken a lot of talking to Spine to find out exactly what Rabbit wanted. Not what Peter the First wanted, but what Rabbit wanted.

But for Rabbit, that brought up more questions, more pain, and her way of working through it was to write music. She had locked herself away, writing songs by herself, without anyone else. Taking the idea to heart, Spine and HatchWorth had done the same thing, writing without any input from the others.

And then they came together to make another album with what they had made.

Mark Three was not Rabbit's favorite album. Not by a long shot. Of course she had her favorite songs, like any musician, she could appreciate what the others had written. But the album itself felt... wrong. It was a spattering of random songs, what had no flow to each other, that had no cohesive thought to them. The songs were good, but as an album?

It felt like they did. Disconnected, confusing and confused, alone.

And Rabbit had hoped that this trip with WINK would help them talk, reconnect, become a family again. But nope. Not doing. Then, something caught her eye.

Looking up, Rabbit's artificial breath was stolen away. Space whales! 

"Hatchworth. Look up! It's a whale!"

But HatchWorth had only glanced up, not seeing anything. He gave an excuse to move away, walking past Rabbit, and to the bunks set up for any humans that would use the ship later.

"Spine, Spine look UP! They're right above us, look up!"

But he was playing games. He didn't care. He was in his own world, just like he had been the last two years. Just like they had all been for the last two years.

The song came to her in a flash. She found Squeezy, and let the notes fall from her fingers and voicebox. Music started to play in her head, and she wished it would join her accordion, make it a real song, something like what they used to have.

"Hey! What's with all the singin'?"

"Yeah, why the hub-bub?"

They were back. The Spine, HatchWorth, they had heard her singing, playing. And they, being programmed to preform, to write music, to sing, they had come to see what the music was. And they stared upwards, in awe, of the sight above them.

Space whales.

It hit Spine just as quickly as it had hit Rabbit, and he had Hatchy get his bass. And he went and grabbed his guitar. Rabbit was insanely proud of herself for bringing all their stuff along! She let a few notes hang in the air, and right away they caught them and followed along.

Within seconds, all three of them were sitting on the steel floor, heads craned back as they watched the whales swim passed them. No video games, no moody naps, no past troubles. Just them. Just a pod of space whales, a guitar, a bass, an accordion, a song, and three siblings.

Siblings.

They sang in tandem, no one having to explain the song to the other, no one having to write the words or notes down. Just playing, like one unit, as though they had all written the song together.

They had. They had written the song together. The spark had lit the fires in their S.O.U.L.s, and it was just like old times.

A whale baby swam a circle around its mother. Another whale passed very close to their thick glass dome, blinking down at them in curiosity as they sang to them. Could the whales hear them? The vacuum of space did not let sound travel, but Rabbit swore she could hear the whales singing along with them. One big one rolled over, and waved his flipper at them, Hatch taking a moment to wave back before plucking more chords. 

"Goodbye!" Rabbit called through the quiet as the song ended, and the pod moved past them. Goodbye. 

The three siblings sat on the floor, silent, unmoving, necks bent back as they watched the glittering stars above them slide along. The whales were going deeper into space, and they were heading back towards Earth. They were going home. Where were the whales going? They'd never know, but it didn't matter. Rabbit glanced to her left, out of the corner of her optic. Spine's face reflected the stars and dome's supports. His eyes glowed bright green, almost as brilliant as the heavenly bodies above them. He was smiling. She glanced to her right, and found Hatchy's face broken into a huge grin, blue eyes wide and full of innocent love and wonder. Her brothers.

She returned her own gaze back up, to the blanket of black questions above them. She didn't know what to think of her past. What to think of their creator, of their home, of the family that had come and gone. But she did know one thing. She was sitting here, in space. Lightyears away from the Manor. But she was home already.

"I think we should write some m-m-music." Rabbit's voice was so quiet, peaceful. No one moved. But the smile on Spine's face grew bigger.

"Ya know what Rabbit? I think that's a wonderful idea."


End file.
